Several Hours Later
by K100
Summary: Several hours after Sunnydale, the gang recovers as Giles explains to Buffy his real reason for wanting Spike dead.


**Several Hours Later**

The bus was parked in front of an old but fairly clean desert motel. Giles was not quite sure what city they were in, but it was far enough away from the newly formed Sunnydale crater to render some calm among the survivors. They were not close enough to civilization, however, to have to make any decisions yet as to what comes next.

Across the street from the motel was a small and oddly modern shopping center with a diner, market, and gas station all run by the same family. About a mile away there was a small patch of lights that he assumed were a few homes. Other than that, everything was darkness. The sun had finally disappeared and the day would officially end in just over an hour. Giles just wanted the day to be over with.

He stood in the middle of the empty street—with the motel on one side and the shopping center on the other—and took a moment to look out in each direction, down the empty streets. In one direction there was Sunnydale, and in the other direction was unknown. He had not seen a car all day or a person in hours. The lights from the 24hr gas station/diner/market seemed to burn into him and shelter him from the outside world—they were so bright compared to the dark just outside their temporary stop. He walked down the middle of the street, in the direction of Sunnydale, until the lights from the gas station were far behind him. He marveled at the desert air—at night it was so clear, crisp, and light. If any place could have healing powers, it was the desert. He wanted to be healed.

He stared into the blackness, in the direction of Sunnydale, as if somehow he would be able to see it again. It was thirty miles away, he figured. But it was out there somewhere: buried and smoldering, a giant bowl containing all the pain and love he had ever truly felt. In many ways, he had been born there and he had died there. He just wanted to go back—back in time.

Suddenly scared, he reached into his coat pockets, but he relaxed when he felt the stiff and now bent piece of paper. He let out a breath and traced his fingers over the edges of the paper.

The quiet was deafening. The sky was unlike anything he had ever seen, stars like he had never had only imagined. Even on his previous outings to the desert, it had not been like this. This was like being under the surface of the ocean, looking up to the surface. He was not sure how long he stood there marveling at the endlessness of it all, but eventually he walked back to the motel. With every step, he could hear the grains of sand shifting under his shoes.

He climbed back into the bus and sat on one of the benches. He unbuttoned his jacket and leaned against the window and backrest. There was no comfort. As soon as he closed his eyes, he heard footsteps outside the bus. He kept his eyes closed and didn't move. If it was a monster trying to kill him, he would let it. If it was a newly minted slayer, he'd pretend to be asleep.

But as the footsteps got closer, he knew who it was. He knew the sounds of her steps: the way she had a slightly longer stride in her right step and the way she shuffled when she was tired. He kept his eyes closed as she boarded the bus and sat on the bench across the aisle.

"I know you're not asleep," Buffy said softly.

Giles opened his eyes and sat up. "No, I'm not. I was just having some alone time before heading off to bed."

She nodded slightly, as if considering this. They sat in silence for a moment.

"How is Willow?" Giles asked. "Is she still asleep?"

"Yep. She's out."

When they got to the motel, Willow went straight to sleep. She did not go to dinner with the rest of them, and no one could wake her—but she was breathing so they figured she was fine.

Giles nodded. "I can't imagine how much energy that took. After a few days of rest, she should be back to normal."

"What she did—it was everything."

"Yes."

"Xander has been keeping an eye on her," Buffy said. "He was asleep too when I left the room."

Giles understood some of what Xander must be feeling.

"Anya," Giles whispered, feeling the weight of losing her. He liked her. She was his partner. The only real partner he ever had in Sunnydale.

"Yeah. He's trying to be strong for the time being, but…"

He watched Buffy. In the dark bus, it was difficult to see much more than her silhouette, but he could hear in her voice her sadness.

He didn't know if he should, but he said, "Buffy, I'm sorry about Spike."

She didn't react immediately, but when she finally did speak it was with a small, nearly childish voice: "no, you're not."

It was not what she said but the sound of her voice that cut through him. He spoke just above a whisper: "No, I'm not sorry he's dead, but I'm sorry that you're grieving."

There was more silence. He knew she was still angry with him, and maybe she always would be. For the moment, considering that possibility was more than he could deal with. It didn't help that she looked so small in the seat. It always amazed him how she could go from being a giant of human salvation one moment and a small child in the next.

"You got your wish," she said finally.

"I didn't wish for any of this."

"Spike. You wanted him dead, and now he is." She said sadly, "You hated him."

"Yes," Giles said sadly, "I did hate him. And I make no apologies for that."

"I don't know why. He never did anything to you."

Giles leaned into the aisle toward Buffy. "He tried to rape you, Buffy."

She put her hands over her face and inhaled sharply. "Xander."

"I don't care what he did for us. I will always hate him for what he did to you." Tears began to fill his eyes. He was so tired. "Nothing can make up for that."

"It is none of your business."

Tears were blurring his vision and his voice was giving it away. "None of my business? You're my—."

"Slayer? No, you left."

"You're my _world_. You are the person I love most in the world." He brushed away the tears. "Dawn was the one who told me, not Xander. She was sobbing, Buffy. I wanted Spike dead for what he did to you."

"Dawn came to you about it?" She said. The anger was replaced by the palpable shock in her voice.

"Yes, she told me about it just hours before Wood approached me about his plan for Spike. It was too perfect. How could I say no?"

"Why would she go to you?" she said almost to herself. "It was almost a year later at that point."

"You didn't tell me, Buffy." His face was buried in his hands. "You didn't tell me. I wasn't there for you. I left you with that monster."

He was sobbing. Loud, doubled over, sobbing. It terrified Buffy. The last time she saw him cry was over Jenny, and somehow this seemed so much worse, so much more real.

"I'm sorry," he repeated over and over as he cried. "I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry you felt you couldn't come to me."

"Dawn was crying?" Buffy said, but Giles couldn't hear over his own crying. "God, why didn't she come to me if she was still upset about it?"

Buffy sat back in the seat, close to tears herself. She tried not to think about that night. It took her a long time to move past it, but it still made her sick. With Giles sobbing next to her, Xander's reaction to the whole thing, and Dawn still upset, it suddenly occurred to her that it didn't just happen to her.

"He didn't have a soul," she mumbled. "When that happened, he didn't have a soul. He came back with a soul. He was okay after he came back."

He turned to Buffy, his face red and cheeks wet from tears. "Buffy, people with souls rape every day."

"I know that," she said slowly. "I know."

Giles pressed a hand to his forehead. He was unsure if he would ever be able to broach this topic with her. It was something that he could set aside as doom neared, but now, in the calm, he was unprepared to deal with this. He shook his head. "We punish humans for this."

"I cared about him," she said softly. "He changed."

"No, you loved him, but I don't understand how. How could you love someone who could do that to you?" He wanted to beg her to explain how she could love him after that? He didn't understand.

She just stared into his eyes. She had no explanation. She could not change the way she felt about him. "I didn't love myself," she said faintly, tears blurring her eyes. "After I came back, I didn't love myself. He loved me."

"I'm sorry," Giles said again. It seemed to be the only thing he could say. "I'm sorry for everything."

She was slumped in her seat, looking out the front window. All she could think about was Dawn. Her own pain seemed incidental now. What did Dawn think happened? Buffy knew, she always knew, that she had not followed the advice that she would have given anyone else.

He took her hands, pulling her out of her thoughts. "I need you to tell me the truth, Buffy."

She looked into his eyes. "Tell you the truth abou—"

"Did he rape you?"

She inhaled. "Oh, God. No, Giles." She squeezed his hands and saw the pain in his eyes, terrified that that is what he thought. "No. I promise. Really."

In the dark, he searched her eyes. In a voice reminiscent of their hushed, painful midnight conversations after her mother died, he said, "You can tell me, Buffy."

"I know, Giles. I would tell you." She was desperate for him to believe her. "He tried, but he didn't. Please believe me."

"Trying is enough to—" He couldn't finish.

When he didn't release her hands, she said, "I would not lie to you about this. I would not do that to you."

He nodded, convinced but still worried. He was so tired.

She moved across the aisle and sat next to him. They sat shoulder to shoulder facing forward.

"I would have killed him if he had," She said.

He felt his eyes fill with tears again. He wanted to believe that she would have killed him if he had succeeded, but he wasn't sure. That doubt, he knew, would eat away at him. Giles finally said: "And I wanted to kill him because he tried."

She put her head on his shoulder. "I don't want Dawn to think it's okay—what he tried to do. But maybe I made it seem like it was. I need to talk to her."

He rested his head on hers. She felt too warm, hot even.

"What am I supposed to say Giles?"

He closed his eyes. "You just need to talk to her. She just needs you to talk to her. Let her be angry."

"Giles," she paused, not wanting to ask but knowing she had to. "Does _she_ think he raped me?" Her voice was small and frail.

"That's way she was crying when she told me. She wasn't sure."

She groaned. She felt like she could throw up.

"Did you ever talk to anyone about it, Buffy? Willow, perhaps?"

"No. It was just after Tara. There wasn't time. There's never any time."

He put his arm around her shoulders and lightly pulled her closer. Just that motion caused him some minor agony. He was always in pain lately. What he wouldn't give to have a slayer's healing abilities. "You're back because of Dawn," he said.

"What?"

"You asked me awhile ago why you're back. The purpose. You're back because of her. She is your reason."

"I know," she said softly, choosing each word carefully, seriously. "Maybe things will be different now. I've decided I'm going into semi-retirement. We can train the new slayers. Let them share the burden."

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm sorry for the life you've had to live."

"It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry for every time I let you down. I should have been a better watcher and a better friend. I've failed you time and time again." He took a deep breath and said through his teeth, "I hate myself for it."

"We've all messed up."

"It doesn't make it okay."

"I hated you at times." She said, "I hated you when you tried to kill Spike, and when I got kicked out of my own house. But I've never hated you more than when you left me."

He felt physically ill—he wanted to go back in time and undo all of it.

She said with more conviction, "The thing that makes me the most angry—the thing that really pisses me off—is that if I were in your position, I would've done the same thing." She adjusted her head on his shoulder. "Hell, I kind of did. I didn't move to another country, but I abandoned Dawn when she needed me. At least when you did it, you were trying to help me. I did it because I didn't care at all."

"You do care, Buffy. You have always cared with all your heart. Sometimes things just don't go as we planned."

"I would kill anyone, human or demon, without a second thought, if they tried to hurt Dawn the way Spike—" Her voice faded away. "I'm good at killing."

"I'm angry that I left it to Wood. I should have killed Spike myself—in his sleep."

"Why didn't you?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Wood had a plan, and when it didn't work, and when I saw you so upset, I couldn't. I was afraid you'd never speak to me again, and that would have killed me. I love you far more than I could ever hate him."

She was warm pressed against him, with his arm heavy on her shoulder. She closed her eyes, and without either of them talking, she could almost pretend that she was a child again. A child of four, twelve, or seventeen, she did not know, but she was a child who still had a mother and father, a warm home, a soft bed, and safe haven in their love.

"Why didn't you tell me that you knew?" She asked. "You never told me that's why you wanted him dead."

"Like you said, there wasn't time. With the house full of people and everything going on, there wasn't time or space for us to talk. I was worried about him and The First, that wasn't a lie, but I was just blinded by my anger and my grief."

She pulled out of his arms to face him. "I would _not_ have let you kill him, and I still would have been angry with you for trying, but I would have understood. If you had told me that you wanted to kill him for those reasons, I would have understood at least." Her voice cracked: "I may have even been thankful. You could have saved me a lot of hurt feelings if you had just told me why."

He brushed back the hair out of her face; the gash on her forehead was swollen.

"But you didn't talk to me, Giles. You didn't trust me."

"You didn't talk to me, either."

Giles moved his arm and realized there was blood on it. He felt his coat and just bellow his ribs there was wet blood. Had he been injured and not realized? "I think I'm bleeding," he said rather calmly.

She opened his jacket, but in the dark she couldn't tell where the blood was coming from. "Are you in pain," she asked.

"Yes, but I'm old. I'm always in pain."

"You know what I mean." She pressed her hands to the inside of his jacket. "There's no blood on the inside. Is your arm bleeding?"

He held out his arm and they inspected it.

Then Buffy paused and felt her own abdomen.

"It's me," Buffy said almost cheerfully, "the blood's mine." Her shirt was nearly adhered to her body with blood. She reached around and pressed her hand to her lower back. "I'm bleeding from both sides. Strange. I wasn't earlier."

He escorted her off the bus. "We need more light. Might need stitches."

"No, it's fine. I'm a Buffy healer."

"I don't want to take the chance, Buffy. It must have been bad for it to have reopened—on you."

They walked across the street to the market. It too was still open.

"Do you have any money, Giles?"

He stopped. "Not really." He pulled out a twenty. "This is it."

Xander, at Anya's insistence, was the only person who had brought a wallet to the end of the world. Of those who actually had money, no one else saw the need. So when they got to this small oasis, nearly out of gas, Xander had to pay for everything. The motel, the food, the gas.

They wandered the store—Buffy with a hand pressed to her wound trying not to leave a trail of blood—searching for supplies: bandages, first aid, pain killers, a sewing kit, and super glue.

When the clerk rang them up, it came to over $40. Giles looked at the items and then to Buffy. He started laughing. To Buffy it sounded remarkably like the crying he had been doing in the bus.

"This is the kind of day we've had," he said to her.

She was worried he was having a nervous breakdown. In the bright store lights, he looked even worse than she had realized. He was bruised and his clothes were torn. The tear stains down his face were still visible.

"Giles look." She pointed to a TV behind the counter.

The sound was off, but the news was on and there was a helicopter view of the destroyed Sunnydale. The caption read: "Sinkhole swallows Southern California town."

"Can you turn it up," Buffy asked the clerk.

He did and they watched the images of Sunnydale, listened to geologists try to explain the strange phenomena, and then there was talk of finding survivors. The segment was over in seconds. Her home, her war, her life, was reported and then replaced by the California lottery numbers and a cat food commercial within seconds, without significance, without heart. Buffy and Giles looked at each other.

"Do you think they'll find survivors?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

The clerk turned off the sound and said to Buffy, "are you okay? You're bleeding."

"I'm a Sunnydale survivor. We both are."

The clerk pointed to the TV. "You were there?"

Buffy nodded. "It was home."

"Just take whatever you need," the clerk said. He gave them each a few plastic bags. "It's fine. I own the store. Take what you need. Let me know if you need any more bags."

Giles handed him the twenty. "Thank you."

They filled their bags and walked back across the street.

Buffy said, "Were you going to sleep in the bus tonight?"

"What? No, I was going back to my room."

"You don't have a room, Giles. My math is not that bad. There weren't enough rooms."

"It's okay, Buffy. I'm okay."

"We had a folding bed brought to our room. It's for you, Giles. Dawn and I watched you walk around and then get into the bus. We got you a bed."

When they arrived at the door to her room and she put her finger to her lips. "Everyone is asleep."

It was dark in the shabby room, but Giles could make out two queen sized beds and a folding bed against the wall with only a narrow walkway. Xander and Willow were in one bed and Dawn was in the other.

They made their way to the bathroom and softly shut the door. When Buffy flicked on the light, the small room was soaked in light. The white tile seemed to magnify the brightness.

He hung his bloody jacket over the shower curtain rod. "Perfect," he said, squinting. "I should have no trouble seeing."

The front of her shirt was soaked in blood. She marveled at it in the mirror for a second. "This has never happened before. Usually when I stop bleeding, I stop bleeding. God, I'm getting old."

He unpacked the bags and set out his supplies, including a needle and thread and super glue. "It went straight through, Buffy. It's a bad wound. There's no telling what it hit. We should get you—and everyone—to hospital tomorrow. This will just get you through until then."

He rolled up his sleeves and observed his own trophies from the fight. His arms were badly bruised, and one in particular was noticeably swollen.

"I'll get some ice while you set up," she said after just one glance at his arms.

He began to protest, but she was gone and back with a bucket of ice before he had finished washing his hands and sterilizing the needle.

She took off her shirt, heavy from the blood, and tossed it in a sink full of warm water, as Giles put on rubber gloves and dabbed some antiseptic on a cloth.

He sat at the edge of the bathtub and waved her over. "This may hurt."

She stood in front of him and he dabbed the front wound, and she inhaled sharply. The pain seemed to sizzle.

"I'm sure I'm fine," She complained. "Let's just leave it."

"It looks like an infection could be developing." He stopped for a moment. "Hmm."

"What?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"You feel hot." He reached up and pressed the back of his gloved hand to her forehead. "I noticed it in the bus and again now. You may be getting sick. That could explain the lack of normal Buffy healing."

He tried to keep his facial expressions from giving away his worry as cleaned the wound meticulously and wiped away the excess blood. They were quiet as he sutured the gash as best he could with the rudimentary tools he had, and she occasionally blotted blood away. They had done this kind of this so many times before. He hated it every time, but he had long developed a system of closing cuts on Buffy. For the bigger gashes, he used a combination of stitching and superglue to help her avoid both prolonged healing and weekly hospital visits. Usually, he could take the stitches out in a day and her body would heal the rest. This injury, however, was much different. When he was done with the front, she pressed a thick square of gauze to the wound and he taped it to her abdomen.

"Okay," he tried to sound up-beat. "Other side."

She turned around and he saw that the back side was much worse. He braced himself on bathtub wall where he was sitting. The gash was longer and the entire area around it was bruised. She may have even had a few broken ribs. The discoloration from the bruise spread down to beyond the waist of her jeans and up to her bra. To top it off, she seemed too thin. Her ribs were excessively defined under her skin. Was she eating? The past months had been a blur. He had let her down in so many ways.

"That bad?" she asked, when he didn't begin.

"Ah, nothing we can't handle. This the entry point?"

"Yeah."

He wanted to scold her for not taking care of the wound sooner, for not eating, but he knew that was not going to help the situation. Instead he repeated the process. As he wiped the blood away and saw the wound for what it was. It was hard to look at. He was thankful she was not facing him to see the pain on his face. It took longer and he knew it hurt her more, but she didn't complain this time. Somehow, through the blurry vision of occasional tears, he finished the last stitch in the center of the gash and used superglue on the edges. They bandaged her up.

He tried to make his voice normal. "Done."

She looked at him and ignored the obvious tears in his eyes. "I feel much better," she said.

"Good," he whispered.

She briefly glanced at her back in the mirror before she closed the toilet seat lid and sat down. Giles put away the first-aid as she dug through one of their shopping bags. She pulled out two matching maroon T-shirts that said "Lancaster, CA" on the front. "Here we go," she said, and handed him the larger of the shirts.

"I'd rather not," he mumbled.

She slipped hers over her head. "Fine, sleep in your dirty clothes."

"Good thing you got the ice," he said, wrapping some in a washcloth. "You should use it on your back."

She pressed the pack of ice to her back. "You need ice your wounds too, Giles. You're old and not Buffy."

He nodded and continued to tidy up.

She watched. She was tired but didn't want to go to bed. If she went to bed, then the day would be over. It was a painful day, but tomorrow was something she else all together. It was a day she had never encountered before. It was so full of hope and change and possibility—and maybe even rest and happiness—that it scared her to no end.

He realized she was watching. "Excuse me. I'll leave you to get ready for bed," he said apologetically.

"No. That's not—" she grabbed his arm. "That's not it." She sighed. "Do you want an orange?" She pulled a few oranges out of a shopping bag. "I grabbed some."

He wasn't hungry, but he wanted her to eat, so he nodded. "Thank you."

He sat back on the bathtub wall and pealed his orange as she pealed hers.

In her ugly maroon shirt that was many sizes too big, and her forehead cut, and her slumped posture, and her tired eyes, and the fact she was very bad at pealing her orange, Giles was in awe of Buffy's beauty.

Like a whisper in his ear, he was suddenly and profoundly aware of his love for her, his admiration, and his undeniable pride. How had he been so lucky to be called to her? In the profile of her face, he was hit with something he had never recognized in her before.

"You look so much like your mother," he said.

She faced him with bright eyes and a half smile. "Really?"

"Yes." He studied her face, like studying a painting. "It's in your smile. She had such clarity in her smile. Such confidence."

Buffy drew in a breath and he could see the happiness on her face. "Everyone always said Dawn looked like Mom and I looked like my dad."

"No." Giles shook his head emphatically. "You look like Joyce."

The way he said her name— _Joyce_ —startled Buffy. It was filled with a warmth and honestly she didn't expect.

"She would be so proud of you."

"Thank you for saying that." Buffy then shook her head sadly. She was still picking tiny pieces of peal from her orange. "But she wouldn't be. I've messed up—with Dawn. I'm so afraid I'm just going to keep messing up."

"Buffy, being proud of someone has nothing to do with perfection. It has to do with love and growth. You have never been perfect, Buffy, but you never give up. That is exactly the thing that makes _me_ so proud of you."

She handed him her orange. "Can you do it?"

He pealed her orange in a few large sections and handed it back to her. He said, "I didn't know your mother nearly long enough, but the one thing we shared—the thing that had us eternally bound—was our love for you. So, when I say she was proud, I know it for a fact. I know it because I feel it."

"Even after what Spike did to me—tried to do?"

He removed his glasses. "What? Buffy—"

"I know. It wasn't my fault." Her voice cracked. "It felt like it, though. I felt I brought it on myself somehow."

"Buffy, stop this instant. It was in no way your fault."

"Then why did it feel that why? Why do I still feel that way?" Tears fell from her eyes, and down her cheeks and off her chin.

He kneeled in front of her, trying to get her to look him in the eyes. "He violated you. He treated you like you were less than him. You have every right to feel confused and hurt, but it was not your fault."

She didn't bother wiping the tears from her face. "But he didn't, he didn't rape me. I stopped him. He didn't violate me—not really."

"He did. He made you question yourself. He made you feel like this. He did violate you. Just because he didn't succeed in what he wanted to do, doesn't mean that you should be okay with it."

"Why do I love him?" she cried. "Why do I miss him? I'm weak."

"No, Buffy. You are strong. You were betrayed in the worst way by someone you cared about. Someone you trusted. I can't even begin to understand what you went through—what you're going through." He put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulders. "It's okay to let yourself be angry. You don't always have to go it alone." He pulled her into a hug.

"But I'm the slayer."

"Yes, you're a leader. You will forever be burdened with being _the_ leader, but that doesn't mean you're alone. It has never meant that. The difference between being alone and in charge is hard to decipher, especially when the world depends on it, but when it comes to you and your well-being, it shouldn't be hard to see that you have never been alone."

Her tears were gone but the silence between them lasted for minutes as he held her.

She said, "It was so demeaning. I didn't want anyone to know. I was embarrassed."

What could he say? Were there even right words to say? "I love you," he said into her hair.

"I forgave him," she whispered. "I forgave Spike. I didn't forget, but if I didn't think about it, I was able to forgive him. He tried to make up for what he did. He cared."

He stroked her hair. "It's good you forgave him. You shouldn't burden yourself with anger. That's what I'm here for. I don't forgive him and I never will."

"I know, Giles."

He kissed the top of her head and pulled away from her. He smiled. "I nearly forgot, I have something for you."

His jacket was still hanging on the shower curtain rod. He reached in one of the pockets and pulled out a photograph. It was a little bent, but it survived Sunnydale. He handed it to Buffy.

She stared at it. It was a photo of Buffy, Dawn and Joyce. They were smiling. They were happy. They were together, and they were home.

She looked to Giles. "This was the picture from the living room. It was in a frame."

"Yes. I don't know why, but this morning I grabbed it just before we left. Took it out of the frame and put it in my pocket."

"How did you know?"

He shrugged. "I didn't. It was strange. I just took it without much thought."

Buffy looked back to it. "My mom was beautiful."

"Yes," Giles agreed.

"Do you ever stop needing your parents? Do you ever stop wishing they could take care of you one last time?"

"No," Giles said without hesitation. "I still wish I could go to my mother, and even my father, and have them take care of me—tell me everything will be fine. I don't imagine that will ever change."

The exhaustion that held both of them in a kind of stasis was now unbeatable. They stood quietly, not moving or talking simply because they were too tired to do so. The crying had worn them out as well.

It was late, but Giles had no perception of time. His watch had stopped working this morning, just before they left for the school. Since then it had seemed as though time was finally irrelevant. He knew when he woke in the morning that time would march forward and he would have to get a new watch if he was going to continue to survive.

She looked at Giles thoughtfully. He noticed the sadness in her gaze.

"You're not my watcher anymore, are you?"

That struck him like nothing ever had. He sighed. "No. I suppose not."

Without trying to say more, they busied themselves with cleaning up. She took her bloody shirt out of the sink and hung it near his jacket; he left the room and fixed up his bed.

As his eyes adjusted in the dark room, he could see the others sleeping. They were just children. Xander and Willow were huddled together like puppies. Dawn was sprawled out on the bed and the covers kicked to the floor. Giles picked the covers up and put them back on her bed. He kissed her on the forehead as he pulled a sheet over her contorted body. He turned around to the other bed and kissed the foreheads of both Xander and Willow—so grateful they were all there.

When he finally kicked off his shoes, traded his button down for the ugly t-shirt Buffy had given him, and laid down, he felt like he would never move again. He almost felt as though he could die there.

Buffy emerged from the bathroom and felt her way to the bed with Dawn.

From where he was, he could not see any of them, but he could hear everything. He listened as Buffy got into bed and wrestled the sheets away from Dawn. Once she stopped moving, Giles could hear the soft breathing of all of them. Their lives were so fragile. His life was fragile.

His life was wrapped up in them. He had tried so hard to separate his work from a life he was always trying to start, but he was not smart enough to realize that this was his life. It was not ideal, but there was no escaping. They were his life, his work, his friends, his family.

"Buffy?" He whispered.

"Hmm?"

"It's good that I'm not your watcher anymore."

She rolled over in his direction. "I think so, too. I think we can finally be just Buffy and Giles, not slayer and watcher. Know what I mean?"

"I think so."

She laughed a little. "You can be the rakish uncle now."

He smiled to himself. "Sleep well, Buffy."

"Goodnight, Giles."


End file.
